Shooting An Iraq Vet In The Face

Has OWS deliberately put vets at the forefront of protests for propaganda purposes? Yes, they have. But that's a perfectly acceptable tactic for all sorts of protest movements, to frame an image of their movement to best effect. You saw this kind of tactic in the Arab Spring. You saw it in the Civil Rights movement, and, indeed, the gay rights movement. And yet, the degenerate Breitparts of the right have actually equated this non-violent protest by a man who served two tours in Iraq with Hamas, a terror organization that commits war-crimes and forbids any freedom of expression. The stomach turns.

Here's what we're finding. We're finding that OWS has reached levels of online interest that dwarf the Tea Party at its peak:

We're finding that large majorities of Americans share its concern about rising inequality. Whatever David Brooks says, 66 percent in his own newspaper's poll support more taxation from the very wealthy and successful. And that's in a country that has just emerged from a bout of Steve Jobs worship. Americans are not anti-capitalism. They are opposed to what has happened to capitalism and to a non-corrupt democracy, as it has been revealed by the last three years. They are concerned about the collapse of social mobility in America, another crucial element in this polity's stability.

If the right sees this as a call to reform capitalism rather than abolish it, some common ground is possible. In my view, that common ground is where Obama needs to pitch his campaign tent.